Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

The Treasurer invited in December last year Australians—businesses, community groups, individuals—to submit their ideas and priorities for this year's budget. However, the government has been very clear about our priorities, and they are to ensure jobs and growth are put first. Those are the values that Labor brings to the economic task.

Let us compare our values to those of those opposite. We got a taste on the weekend of what the coalition have been doing whilst bunkered down with their mates from the IPA working on some secret plans for draconian, deep and savage cuts. Let us remind ourselves of some of the things which the IPA are proposing—and I note that none of these have been ruled out by the coalition. They are proposing cancelling the first stage of the NDIS, abolishing the decision implementing the National Disability Insurance Scheme, abolishing Fair Work Australia—it goes even further than Work Choices—halving the staff of the CSIRO, cutting the general research budget by 40 per cent, cutting all Commonwealth housing programs, cutting all foreign aid excluding emergency, privatising the ABC—